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Jaguar Heritage to auction off part of its classic-car collection

A few years back it was reported that Jaguar Land Rover had purchased the James Hull classic car collection in its entirety. The collection is beyond significant, as it was at the time of sale the biggest single collection of British cars in the world and the largest private car collection in the UK. Consisting of 543 cars, it ranged from the mundane to the obscure, including some extremely rare prototypes. There were 130 Jaguars, for example, from the C-type to the D-type to the XKSS. When the cars were put up for sale in 2014, the asking price was a not-insubstantial $170 million. JLR didn't reveal how much it spent to buy the cars, but now it seems the carmaker is about to recoup some of those costs. At least 50 cars from the collection will be sold by auction house Brightwells, as part of the Affordable Classics at Bicester sale on March 21; some reports have said JLR would be eventually offloading as many as 100 cars. Looking at the listing, there are some definite gems in there. Not all cars are British, as there are Citroens, Mercedes-Benzes, a Fiat and a Goggomobil. Jaguars and Land Rovers are notably absent from Brightwells' listing, which we take as a clue that the sale will consist of cars not crucial to JLR's wellbeing and heritage. That said, for a lover of British cars there's a possibility to grab something truly interesting: For example, the Reliant Scimitar Ferguson 4x4 Prototype must be worth preserving. A 4WD pioneer also known for Massey-Ferguson tractors, Ferguson fitted its system in Jensens as well as a prototype 4WD Mustang in the 1960s. The fiberglass-bodied Reliant sports car is an interesting sidenote in Ferguson's history. Then there's a Vauxhall Chevette 2300 HS, which is a veritable rally-bred RWD hot hatch in comparison to the American market Chevrolet Chevette, its distant relative. On the hot hatch front, there are also Metro and Maestro turbos, which offer plenty of poke in a light, boxy body. Or if you view the internet's popular "Worst Cars Ever Made" lists as shopping lists, you could build your own collection of slightly dodgy cars: Start with the unfortunate-looking Vanden Plas Allegro, continue to the malaise-tastic Morris Ital Camper, and finish it off with a late-model Lada Riva wagon from the mid-1990s. Some cars are in tip-top shape, and some are best seen as restoration projects, like the very pretty Borgward Isabella coupe from 1960.

Jaguar says F-Type sales off to flying start

As we noted in our recent first drive, Jaguar's luscious new F-Type roadster is a bit of a tweener in both size and cost, lining up in between rival Porsche's Boxster and 911. That one-for-two-segment strategy is showing early signs of paying off, with Automotive News reporting that half of the car's 2014 production allotment is already sold. We're not talking huge numbers - sports cars in this segment only "have a global annual volume of about 75,000 units and a market share of 0.1 percent," notes Jaguar brand director Adrian Hallmark. Yet the company figures the F-Type will work out to about 15 to 20 percent of its total volume of around 60,000 units.
From where we sit, this is all very encouraging news, but it's way too early to call the F-Type a smash hit. The sports car segment is known for its fickleness and its front-loaded sales curve, so the real measure of success will be how it fares over the next few years after early adopters get their cars. Jaguar will have to work to keep the F-Type fresh with new variants, and we hear it's prepared to do just that. The British luxury marque hasn't confirmed a hardtop coupe variant yet, but patent images and spy shots suggest one is on the way shortly, and it ought to extend the model's appeal greatly. A four-cylinder option and a manual transmission have also been rumored, and presumably Jaguar will eventually launch higher-performance R and R-S variants as it has done with various model lines, including its other sporty two door, the XK grand tourer.

Child cobalt miners: Automakers pledge ethical minerals sourcing for EVs

BERLIN - Leading carmakers including Volkswagen and Toyota pledged on Wednesday to uphold ethical and socially responsible standards in their purchases of minerals for an expected boom in electric vehicle production. Demand for minerals such as cobalt, graphite and lithium is forecast to soar in the coming years as governments crack down on vehicle pollution and carmakers step up their investments in electric models. To cover its plans for more than 80 new models by 2025, Volkswagen alone is looking for partners in China, Europe and North America to provide battery cells and related technology worth more than 50 billion euros ($59 billion). Talks with major cobalt producers, including Glencore, at VW's Wolfsburg headquarters last week ended without a deal. More than half of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country racked by political instability and legal opacity, and where child labor is used in mines. On Wednesday, a group of 10 leading passenger-car and truck manufacturers announced an initiative to jointly identify and address ethical, environmental, human and labor rights issues in raw materials sourcing. The partnership dubbed "Drive Sustainability" consists of VW, Toyota Motor Europe, Ford, Daimler, BMW, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo Cars and truckmakers Scania and Volvo. The alliance "will assess the risks posed by the top raw materials (such as mica, cobalt, rubber and leather) in the automotive sector," said Stefan Crets of the CSR Europe business network. "This will allow Drive Sustainability to identify the most impactful activities to pursue" to address issues within the supply chain.Reporting by Andreas Cremer.Related Video: Image Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images Green BMW Ford Honda Jaguar Land Rover Mercedes-Benz Automakers Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Green Automakers Green Culture Electric Scania ethics mining